Zomato chief product officer Tanmay Saksena quits

Saksena was promoted as chief product officer last month and just completed a year at Zomato, the Mintreported, citing a company spokesperson. He was the global business head for Zomato’s food-ordering business before becoming the product chief.

An email to the company seeking comment didn’t elicit any response till the time of filing this report. Saksena couldn’t be immediately contacted.
Saksena joined Zomato in January 2015 after a four-year stint at Disney Social Games as vice president of its studio operations. He had previously worked with Unilever, Jambool, Trippert Inc. (acquired by Playdom Inc.) and Playdom Inc. (acquired by Disney Interactive).

A B.Tech graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Saksena got an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Zomato has been facing difficulties in retaining top-level staff as several senior executives have left the firm after short stints.

In September last year, senior vice president for growth Durga Raghunath abruptly quit to become the CEO of book publishing startup Juggernaut after just a five-month stint with the firm. In July, former Facebook executive Namita Gupta quit as chief product officer at Zomato after just 11 months. That followed the exit of Rameet Arora, a former McDonald’s India executive, from Zomato after just six months as chief marketing officer.

Saksena’s departure comes just as the company announced that it had achieved operational break-even in six markets including India, the UAE, the Philippines and Indonesia.

However, the past few months have been challenging for Zomato. In October, Zomato said it was laying off around 300 employees across the globe, or nearly 10 per cent of its workforce. Most layoffs happened in its content teams across 22 countries.

Also in October, co-founder Goyal wrote to the company’s sales staff indicating that Zomato might fail to meet its sales target for the current financial year.

The company also tried to attract more eyeballs by advertising on porn sites. However, the move drew criticism on social media channels, compelling Zomato to withdraw the campaign. Earlier this month, Zomato shut down its food ordering business in four cities.